In November 2013 RG Taylor Engineering lost their founder Dick Taylor to cancer. Dick had been a strong supporter of St Clare’s Hospice, through another one of his businesses. It was Bob Weston, Chairman of Weston Homes, Dick’s life-long business partner and friend who proposed, sponsored, and delivered the Taylor Centre project in his honour. The Taylor Centre was officially opened in April 2016 by Bob and Dick’s wife, Angela.
The completion of the project brought together the expertise of over 50 building contractors, many of whom kindly volunteered their time or worked on a not-for-profit basis in support of St Clare, with one of these major contributors being RG Taylor Engineering.
The idea behind the Taylor Centre was to provide the non-medical staff at the Hospice greater room to work. The two-storey building provides extra office space and storage facilities, allowing the hospice to free up space in its main building for the expanding community, day therapy and family support teams. The centre also has storage space for clinical equipment and fundraising resources on the ground floor, as well as dedicated facilities for the maintenance and gardening teams. The upper floor provides an open plan office for support and administrative staff.
“With more people in need of our care, and an ageing population, we know that demand for our services will continue to increase year on year,” explained Tanya Curry, CEO of St Clare Hospice.
“We have been responding to this growing need over the past five years with a rapid growth in our services and a three-fold increase in the number of people we care for.
“The Taylor Centre will enable us to accommodate our expanding teams, across both clinical and support services, so that we can be there to support even more families in the future.”
The Taylor Centre may be bricks and mortar, but it means so much more to the people and families who come to St Clare.